homeowners...bill question

DH and i are looking into buying a house. you ladies have been so helpful figuring out what areas to look in but i need more help.
We can figure out the cost of the mortgage with interest, and the taxes, but have no idea about other expenses. we grew up in apartments in nyc so we never paid for heat, hot water etc.
what is your average monthly bill for:
home owners insurance
heat
water
electric
what other monthly bills are there that I may not realize?
tia

Re: homeowners...bill question

home owners insurance:$900 a year
heat:$2,400 a year (oil heat set at 66)
water: anywhere from $30-$100 per every 3 months -bill is higher in the summer)
electric-$ 75 a month, we always shut lights off
what other monthly bills are there that I may not realize?-things that break, lawn maintenance, pool maintenance, mantaining heating system and fireplace,ect...

Re: homeowners...bill question

Our oil bill is usually anywhere from $400 to $800 a month in the winter. Electricity ranges from $200 - 500 every 3 months, depending on usage (it's usually higher in the summer due to the air conditioners and pool filter). Water is actually pretty cheap! It's about $40 every 3 months. Homeowner's insurance for use is about $1,000, but that depends on the value of your house. Also, when you own a house you should always be prepared to deal with things breaking and needing to be fixed or replaced. It doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes expensive repairs can pop up when you least expect them...We had to pay $5000 for a new cesspool and have had to replace our stove and dryer since we moved in, among other things.

Keep in mind that the bills can vary depending on the size of the house, how energy efficient it is, and how conservative you are about using electricity, oil, water, etc... When we were house shopping, a good piece of advice we got was to ask the homeowner of a house you want to buy for copies of recent utility bills so you can see what your estimated costs would be for that particular house, KWIM? They might say no, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

Re: homeowners...bill question

Home Owners $1100/year
Heat (Gas): $125/month
Water: Our water bill is really cheap, about $25-30 every three months
Electric: $150/month
Sewer: I THINK $20 something every other month.

We have a 2000 sq ft house, the size will matter when it comes to heat and electric.

We also have the winterizing and opening of our inground sprinkler which is pretty cheap $150/year

Are you going to maintain your own lawn? Is there a pool?

Things also have a way of creeping up, when we had our inground sprinklers put in an old cesspool caved in and we had to have it filled. It didn't cost a ton but it still had to be taken care of.

Re: homeowners...bill question

The other ladies gave a pretty accurate estimate around what we pay as well.

I always recommend to everyone that if they can, find a home that has gas instead of oil because that can be an awful lot of money to lay out at one time in the winter.

With gas/electric you can do balanced billing and it's pretty affordable.



I always seem to have random things that come up too every couple months. Today I had the dryer repair man out and it was a $146.00 repair.

Re: homeowners...bill question

Dh pays the electric and water so i don't know how much those are. But he has said that the water is about $75/quarter.

I pay the Gas-we're on balanced billing and it's $125. last year it was $133 so it went down a little!! before balanced billing it could be $470/month in the dead of winter; or $35 in the summer. I sometimes don't see the point in paying $125 when the bill is really only $35; but i LOVE it when the bill is $400 and i'm only paying $125! Those first couple of months before balanced billing was ROUGH.

ETA: I believe our home owners insurance is about $1,000/year.

Oh and the terminix fee when we found out we had termites!

Ah the joys of home ownership!

Message edited 11/23/2011 11:36:29 AM.

Re: homeowners...bill question

Homeowners insurance is $1500/year (I have no idea how people pay less because the quotes I got are around $2k)

Oil is about $3K a year. You can get on a budget billing.

Electric is about $140/mo-budget

Water $25 a quarter

Cable/internet/phone $125/mo

Alarm $125/quarter

Landscaper $100/mo

Cleaning person $190/mo-best money ever spent.

These are my fixed expenses, granted I could clean but that's my little present.

Everything else is maintenance, fixing things that break, buying furniture, painting, carpeting/flooring, planting new trees or removing them..etc.